Every December, I give a special presentation to the Board of Trustees on the State of the College. I would like to share an adaptation of this year’s talk with each of you.
As you already know, Claremont McKenna College does not sit still for long enough to capture a current condition, status, or state.
My primary message to all of you is that our success is accelerating.
In sum, the state of the College is not a static condition. It is a force.
This is a tribute to each of you in your resolute, unshakeable commitments to our dynamic liberal arts and responsible leadership mission.
The pedagogic brilliance and prolific research of our faculty.
The tireless commitment of our talented staff.
The driving ambition, creativity, and commitment of emerging leaders throughout our student body.
The generous contributions of time, talent, ties, and treasure of our alumni, parents, and friends.
The rock-solid leadership of our Board of Trustees and the President’s Executive Cabinet.
The engaged social warmth and well-earned mutual trust in our entire community.
Three Points
- The force of the College drives us into a new stratosphere.
- Higher education spins in a storm of formidable challenges.
- We cannot lead alone.
one, the new stratosphere
The CMC rocket ship is ascending to new heights and piercing an unchartered stratosphere.
Everywhere I’ve been in just the past month, people want to learn more about Claremont McKenna College. What we have done, how we did it, what we are planning to do in the near future. Alumni, parents, donors, prospective students, and their families are invested in the CMC story, to be sure. But never before have we had so much interest from prominent leaders across all sectors who have no prior relationship to the College. They want to hear our story, too.
How have we pursued our mission of responsible leadership?
How have we intensified our commitment to the humanities?
How have we responded to the challenges of affective polarization and politicization in higher education through our commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue?
How have we created programs to expand student opportunities and achieve post-graduate success?
What is the bold vision of our integrated sciences program?
How have we confronted challenges during the loneliness pandemic?
How have we navigated threats to the ideal of the amateur in student athletics?
How did we double our campus footprint, double our endowment, and shatter the liberal arts fundraising campaign record?
These many questions arose from:
- a DC constructive dialogue workshop of eight other university leadership teams at the Constructive Dialogue Institute;[i]
- a Chicago 1,300-person conference hosted by the International Leadership Association with programs on the College’s inaugural Carnegie designation in leadership for a public purpose;
- a New York convening hosted by the Einhorn Collaborative of key philanthropies and nonprofits dedicated to civic preparation, pluralism, and dialogue across lines of difference, including our dedicated partner in this work, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars;
- a Hong Kong conference of 31 university presidents hosted by the Alliance of Asian Liberal Arts Universities; and
- many other special gatherings, including one at the university that inspired the development of The Claremont Colleges—Oxford—and one of its colleges, Regent’s Park, which is developing programs core to our mission.
two, cathedrals on fire
When Priya and I were on sabbatical in the fall of 2023, we visited the renovation site of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. I created some digital art of the renovation and added haiku to find inspiration for our current CMC moment.
It’s a humbling reminder that even the most revered spires are vulnerable to fire, to storms, to gale force winds, to earthquakes that rattle the foundations, to neglect, to disrepair.
As you know, on April 15, 2019, in Paris, the unthinkable happened.
A century to construct, eight centuries of worship, one of the most beautiful, visited structures of the world, 14 million each year, up in flames.
Roof melted. Attic collapsed. Spire toppled.
Near complete destruction.
Whatever the spark, whatever the conditions, we saw that cathedrals, too, can burn in a moment. Even the great ones.
Could the French spirit rise from these ashes?
After the fire, President Macron said he would rebuild the cathedral.
He projected an impossible five-year timeline.
To pull it off, the French had to organize nine disciplines, source materials, build housing for global artisans and builders and architects and restoration experts.
Macron did not do it alone.
The entire country saw Notre Dame’s restoration as its collective responsibility.
The world, too, stepped up. Indeed, Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis donated almost instantaneously.
We know that sparks cause fires, but here the devastation sparked a forceful centripetal cure.
Sparks inspire, too.
The impossible challenge pulled everyone together to restore the magnificent structure.
It opened this month. A little more than five years later. Stunning.[ii]
three, no college an island
We take inspiration from this.
Yes, we have similar risks of fire (and smoke) as we experienced this past fall.
Yes, we face serious threats of other kinds, natural or human-induced, to our campus.
These are not the only challenges we face in higher education, however.
We can distinguish ourselves but never isolate or separate ourselves from the larger environment.
Notre Dame sits on an island. We do not.
We cannot ignore the storm of formidable challenges sweeping through our colleges and universities.
- challenges to the value proposition;
- polarizing politization and corrosion of trust;
- the loneliness pandemic;
- overspecialization and siloed disciplines in a world of mixed problems; and
- the devaluation of the role of the humanities in sustaining human intelligence (our imagination and creativity) in the advent of AI.
The most powerful source of our CMC strength is our courage to take on these big challenges.
We cannot lead alone.
We must draw on our strength to lead beyond the four corners of our own program.
If higher ed falters, so do we. So, we must lead through others.
We skate with a purpose beyond that of Gretzky. He famously attributed his success in hockey to his ability “to skate to where the puck was headed.” At CMC, we skate to where we want the puck to go, where we want higher ed to go. Not just by example, but in collaboration.
We see sparks of inspiration in the fires.
We catch hidden tailwinds in the storm.
We discover new foundations in the shifting earth.
Why are we strong in the face of these challenges?
We’ve embroidered the high-quality satisfaction and impact of our full student experience across all corners of the College through:
- our brilliant faculty and institutes, centers, and labs, which involve our students in the vitality of their prolific research;
- our unwavering commitments to intimate learning and personal relationships through social warmth;
- our student leadership in ASCMC, RAs and FYGs; mentors, consultants, tutors, Romero Success Coaches, and so many others; and
- the dual commitment to support our students with unconditional love and trust and hold them to the highest expectations.
The data on our post-graduate success is reflected in the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard[iii] and other prominent national rankings drawing on the same data.[iv] We have kept average net price below $30,000 a year[v] and our average debt upon graduation at $21,331, one of the lowest in our national peer group. We have produced the strongest graduate outcomes[vi] measured in earning capability and, according to Raj Chetty, economist and director of Opportunity Insights, one of the highest levels of social mobility in the liberal arts.
We’ve embroidered our programs to expand student opportunity through:
- The Student Imperative;
- The Scholar Communities;
- The Kravis Opportunity Fund;
- The CARE Center;
- The Soll Center for Student Opportunity;
- The Sponsored Internships and Experiences Program;
- The industry networking treks, and many other programs.
We have fought the loneliness pandemic with a dedicated strategy of community, purpose, and play.
We have fought the widespread lack of internal purpose with a priority on self-authorship.[vii]
We have contested the death of the amateur with our top 10 CMS program and our leadership in tackling the major challenges confronting Division III and the NCAA. We have proven our model of the scholar-leader-athlete who studies hard, leads on campus, and competes successfully.
We have fought affective polarization with open minds, open hearts, and warm shoulders, all embroidered into the constellation of our Open Academy programs, producing the strongest institution in higher education in free expression.
We have built the Athenaeum into the gold standard in the intensity, engagement, and viewpoint diversity of student programming.
We have the most advanced program in the country in constructive dialogue. This on a campus that is hardly apolitical.[viii] Our student body ranks number one in political engagement and number two in having the most active student government.
Here (and elsewhere), we have a national leadership role to contribute, in collaboration with over 100 other presidents committed to civic preparation and leadership through the Institute for Citizens and Scholars and in the development of a national vision and strategy that aspires to reach millions of students in our country.
We have launched our revolutionary Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences, with half the faculty hired and the iconic Robert Day Sciences Center opening this summer. Houston, we have lift off. This is the most important development in undergraduate science education in this century, one we must share across global higher education. Grand challenges, no departments, project based learning, computational core, research throughout, teamwork, presentations to external authorities and experts across all sectors.
We have one of the most inspired public art programs in the world of higher education, with powerful new pieces already commissioned.
We have envisioned and broken ground on the first phase of our Sports Bowl in the expanded Roberts Campus.
Bolstering The CMC Strategy, in the past decade, we have doubled our endowment, doubled the size of our campus, secured the school’s long-term financial future with the issuance of a 2022 century bond.[ix]
We shattered the campaign record for liberal arts education and raised more money per student per year on a three-year average than any other college or university in the nation.
And it’s not just the big donors. Our young alumni less than 10 years out donate at the highest rate by far of any liberal arts college in the country.[x]
Based on these achievements, we attract the financial, human, and reputational fuel that help us launch at a rate of exponential acceleration, build the mass of our accomplishments, and accelerate through the stratosphere.
That’s the force of CMC.
And this is why we must lead or at the very least contribute to the renovation of the burning cathedral, even if it’s not our own.
In the wake of Thanksgiving, I am beyond grateful to each of you.
In anticipation of the Holidays and the New Year, I am beyond excited for what we will do together.
This is our story to tell and celebrate this holiday season.
Our CMC story to write for the ages.
With our compass of values, we navigate the new stratosphere.
With the spark of inspiration, we continuously rebuild, improve, and expand the contributions of our cathedral for the broader good.
With the actualization of our original idea, we meet the challenges of our future world of affairs.
No college is an island.
The bell tolls for us.
The bell tolls for CMC.
May the CMC force be with you.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
iCMC draws on Perspectives, a Constructive Dialogue Institute training module, for entering first-year students. The College had a 98% completion rate in the fall. CMC students also measured significantly higher with attributes like intellectual humility, freedom of expression, openness to diverse perspectvies, and effective listening skills.
iiArchitectural critic Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times recently wrote of Notre Dame, “This is what the restoration ultimately provides. It reinforces our bond with the past. And it assures us that we can still find each other as so many millions of people have done across so many years, under the oak rafters, among the old stones.”
iiiSee https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school?112260-Claremont-McKenna-College/
ivSee https://www.cmc.edu/outcomes/rankings
vSee https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/institution-profile/112260#average-net-price
viSee https://www.wsj.com/rankings/college-rankings/best-colleges-2025
viiDianna Graves ’98, CMC’s Vice President for Student Affairs, describes self-authorship as what sets the College’s student life approach apart from others. “We want students to think about the purpose and meaning of their time here. They shouldn’t be chasing notches on a resume. They should be much more invested in asking, ‘What is it about these opportunities that will matter to you? And how will that translate into a stronger community and sense of belonging for every CMC student?’ We want them to connect those dots.”
viiiIn a recent national survey on college free speech from College Pulse, used by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), CMC ranked first in comfort expressing ideas.
ixSee https://www.cmc.edu/sites/default/files/2021-2022 CMC Annual Financial Report.pdf
xPer CMC’s Office of Advancement, the 10-year average donation rate for young alumni is 36%. This is often 5 to 10 percentage points higher than the nearest peer college.
spark to build
million hours to build
our lady of Paris
8 centuries past
just 9-hour fire
melted roof, attic collapsed
toppled the spire
French fight fire with fire
five-year centripetal sprint
blueprints, wood, stone, cranes
masons, carpenters
metalists, steeplejacks, roofers
painters of gold leaves
loose wires re-fused
explode the impossible
spark us too, to build
